


It Takes Two... [Hotlock]

by Squidlicious



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Multi, Steven Universe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5967622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squidlicious/pseuds/Squidlicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Hotlock: the Rodimus/Drift fusion]</p><p>The Lost Light is dangerously low on supplies and fuel due to a raid on the ship. They find an extremely old abandoned prison planet once controlled by Cybertron in the past. At first, a scouting group (Consisting of Rodimus, Drift, Rung, Cyclonus, Tailgate, Swerve, Rewind, Whirl and Chromedome) confirms that there’s fuel for them to use and supplies but it's soon discovered that there are dangerous Decepticons prisoners along with other criminals within. </p><p>It becomes obvious that conventional strength won’t be enough to complete this mission Drift recommends to Rodimus to do a previously forgotten and dangerous method to speed things along, Fusion. But as usual for the LL nothing ever goes as planned.</p><p>[Part of the Transformers MTMTE!Steven Universe AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> The MTMTE AU will be just MTMTE but with SU rules (fusions) and matching up some major events that happen in SU with MTMTE storyline. This fic is chronologically the first time Tailgate sees a fusion. 
> 
> And this also takes place around MTMTE #9.
> 
> Enjoy!

The spherical planet expanded as the Lost Light got closer to its atmosphere. Winds piercing the massive vessel, resisting the massive weight until the gravity opened its hands and accepted the ship. Soft mixtures of flushing pink spread across the broad horizon while sharp purple shards stabbed from the ground into the blank sky. The sense of stillness and silence breaking as the Lost Light ship lands on the sand and shard covered acres. A loud hiss bursting from the engines, steam rising back into the atmosphere to disappear. As soon as the foreign ship calmed its engines, the silence spilled across the plains again.

A group of colorful bots walked away from the towering starcraft resting near a jagged forest of thick rock formations and stalagmites. As they walked across the quiet plains, the oily black skies above littered with faint sparks of lights watched them traverse the dark landscape. Leading the group with a wide and proud gait was a red and yellow robot with chrome tailpipes winding around his lower legs and arms, optics a bright cyan scanning the horizon and occasionally looking to the bots in his charge, flashing a large confident grin to the two in particular that were trekking a few steps behind him. On his right was a white and red mech, cyan eyes scouring the area around them and taking in the new environment with an air of cautious excitement and interest. At his left, was a shorter citrus orange and white bot with a thin hologram slate, constantly observing the data it was popping up. His systems jumped when he felt a sharp slam to the back of his plating.

“So Rung…..What’s on this barren sand ball with all the tall purple rock things?”

The smaller bot adjusted his optic glasses, not dignifying Rodimus with a glance.

“Well….Captain…..This world is apparently very ancient. It used to have organic life billions of years ago on it, but something in the atmosphere accelerated the heat on the planet and it slowly cooled down and-”

Rodimus made a disgusted noise. “Look I didn’t bring Perceptor for a reason...Please summarize….”

“This planet is very, very, very, very, old and seems abandoned. No sign of life anywhere so far.”

“See how easy that was? Short, sweet and to the point.” The captain smirked as he slammed his  servo on Rung’s back again, “Too bad you only fill out one of those credentials….” With a sigh, the psychiatrist walked away from Rodimus.

_“Breathe Rung….Don’t let him agitate you...We’re in a serious situation and we need to focus on finding something on this planet…”_

Rung spotted Drift walking away from the others, going deeper under an arch of tall rocks. The swordsman stopped as he stared off into the distance of violet rocks stabbing out of the soft pink sand. Drift kept looking forward, squinting his optics. “....No way…”, the white mech talked to himself. A soft yellow eye looked the 3rd in command captain and then at the psychiatrist and captain in the distance.

“Humph, guess everyone’s still a grouchy pile of parts since fuel and supplies ran low…..” A towering blue helicopter whispered to himself, which is a mystery as he lacked a mouth. Whirl jabbed an “elbow” to the older Cybertronian quietly standing next to him. “D-Didja hear me Cyclonus?”

“Don’t touch me or you’ll be losing that arm.” Cyclonus growled, he stopped walking and stood away from the rest of the bots, scarlet optics taking in the group and area.

Whirl rolled his one eye and walked up to a mini bot with a cyan and white scheme. He rested a claw on the bot’s shoulder and leaned down. “So tell me Tailgate, what do you think is on this planet?....”

Tailgate flinched as he felt Whirl’s cold claw rest on him. “O-oh...Um...maybe this planet used to be inhabited by robots? I mean….reminds me of some landscapes that used to be around on Cybertron…..”

Whirl looked around, “How romantic…...But I know what this planet is….”

The small bot turned to Whirl, interested. “What is it?” The jet leaned down, staring at Tailgate with his one, erie yellow optic. The atmosphere between them feeling heavy all at once, and the bot felt a small shudder run through his frame.

“A prison planet”, Whirl snickered.

“Pfft. Yeah right.” An equally short bot, with a permanent smile across his face, walked up to the other side of Tailgate. Swerve took Tailgate’s arm and tugged him away from the partially crazy jet. “Don’t listen to him, you know how cracked in the head Whirl is. Also Cyclonus looks like he’s gonna stare a hole through you and Whirl….”

Tailgate looked back to Cyclonus, standing there with his optics staring directly at him. The little mech flinched and turned back around. “ _What did I do?...._ ”, he thought to himself.

Whirl followed both of the mini bots, getting excited, “But it’s true! I mean yes, I’m a little cracked in the ol’ data nest, but it's true! I used to know a wild guy who got sent here!”

Tailgate turned to Whirl, still being tugged away by Swerve. “What happened to him?”

Whirl shrugged, “I don’t fraggin’ know! I highly doubt the guy escaped prison. He wasn’t the smartest person…”

Swerve scoffed before addressing the helicopter, actually humoring Whirl for once, “So how the hell do you know that this planet is a prison planet?”

The towering mech jumped in front of the bar tender causing the two minibots to stop dead in their tracks. Whirl squatted down to their level, “Storytime!  Way back even before tall, purple, and snarly face over there was forged into existence, everyone on Cybertron, for once, all agreed to build an ultimate prison facility far away from the planet to keep criminals and psychos away from them as much as possible. And it worked!...too well! People who worked here and visited the prison started to get left on this hunk of rock for mysterious reasons. Eventually people regarded this place as some place to drop off anyone you hate! I’m sure this place is pretty much forgotten in Cybertronian databases. Hell who knows…..”, Whirl inches closer to Tailgate and points his claw at the young bot, “Maybe we’re standing on the unmarked graves of poor unfortunate sparks who were killed by the crazed bots who tear apart mini bots for fun….” Tailgate backed up from Whirl, letting go of Swerve’s servo.

“C-cut it out! You’re such a bad story teller!”. He attempted to walk off, nearly jumping out of his own metal skin when he walked into a rock sticking out the ground. _“Stupid Nutjob….What does that dumb excuse for a bot know?....”_ , Tailgate felt his face contort in suspicion under his faceplate and visor, _“....I mean….There’s nothing here…”_

Meanwhile a few feet away, another minibot, with a small head camera, projected an image to the ground. A taller orange, tan, and white bot loomed behind him. Chromedome never stood too far away from Rewind almost acting like his shadow. The two of them were chatting about something as Tailgate approached them along with Swerve and Whirl.

“Rewind, this place cannot be the same planet were that ancient hunk of steel stood?”

The gray minibot projected tall, multiple geometric buildings in a diagram with notes scribbled on both sides of the buildings. He gestured everyone to come closer.

“That ancient hunk of steel, Domey, is the oldest prison in Cybertronian history! Aren’t you a little bit excited that we’re near a place that hasn’t been touched by the Great War! Think of the untouched files preserved in steel dust! The countless old films of criminal backgrounds, oh, and I bet they had a large library! Oh Chromedome, think of all the potential valuable things we could find!”

Rung walked up next to Rewind along with Rodimus following closely behind.

Chromedome placed a servo on the side of his face, sighing. “No Rewind, I can’t because this place held, and possibly STILL holds, the most dangerous criminals/beasts in Cybertronian history! Hell, there might be ex-decepticons and rebel autobots there too! Nobody has ever been able to escape this planet, let alone the prison! There are probably crazy psychos looking at all of us right now!”

 

Rewind rolled his optics, “Oh please, you’re such a scaredy cybercat, Chromedome! The way this prison worked was that nobody could escape because you’re pretty much abandoned on this planet. Limited energon, limited power, and there’s probably an old giant fuel tank at this place! Because anytime a prison ship visited here, they would have a giant machine that transferred fuel and power to the prison. There was a rumor that there was a giant fuel reserve miles underneath the prison in case of extreme emergencies!

“That still didn’t answer my question, how do we not know that here aren’t still criminals in there?”

Rewind paused and tapped his chin. “Well there’s the true mystery….”

Chromedome slumped his shoulders and sighed. Rewind touched the lobotomist’s leg, “Hey! Don’t be so down! We’re fine! It's all quiet and I don’t see any other bots other than us!”

Swerve stared at the sky, a soft rumbling sound breaking against the air above. “Uh you might wanna get a rain check on that…..” He pointed upward, all optics looking toward a red jet flying in the air. Rodimus whispered loudly, “Everyone stand still!” The jet flew above the group, gliding in random paths. Tailgate could’ve sworn he heard the jet cackling. With a burst from the loud engine, the stranger in the air flew back into the horizon where it came from.

“Welp...Mystery solved! We. Are. Not. Aloooone…..” Whirl waved his claws playfully.

Rodimus managed to made a nervous laugh, his optics still glued to the sky. “H-Hey! That was just one jet!....Who knows if it came from the prison?! It could be just some crazy person!

“Nope. It definitely came from the prison Rodimus”, Drift walked up to the group, “You all need to look over here, you’ll get a better view. Everyone walked under the arch, spotting the geometrical buildings sitting far away on the horizon line.

Tailgate had to also squint his optics, “It look so small. Are you sure its the prison?”

Drift walked beside the mini mech and bent down, “Take a look at that jet that flew above us.” He placed a servo on Tailgate’s back and used the other to point directly at the jet that was still visible in the air. It looked like the little red line was slowly inching itself further away from them to the buildings in the distance. “It doesn’t look like much but trust me Tailgate, it’s a huge facility with a lot of mechs and beasts that I do not wish to try and communicate with…”

Drift lifted himself back up, placing an index finger on his side cheek.. “And this situation just got a lot more dangerous because they spotted us…..well, they probably spotted the Lost Light first before us. Even though we’ve walked and drove for miles and miles, it’s still somewhat visible from where we are.”

Rodimus walked to Drift with a worried smile, “Heh...Heh...Like I said it’s probably one guy in that giant place! So there’s nothing to worry about right?!”

Rung protested with a nervous “eeh” sound. His tablet began blinking rapidly, several dots forming on the top of the screen. The dots popped up continuously until it made a solid incomprehensible shape. “My data pad just picked up a lot of life force coming from that direction. Some cybertronian, some organic, and some….that aren’t even recognizable to the system?….”

“Oh Primus, what are we gonna do?!” Rodimus slapped a servo on his helm. “Our ship barely has any fuel, we’re so low on energon a few people are starving, and now we’re gonna have to fight a bunch of psychos!”

Cyclonus walked up behind Tailgate, looking at Rodimus, “First off you can stop complaining and start acting like a captain…Either think of something.”, the old bot reached back and placed his servo on his sword handle, “Or I’m going out there personally….”

Rodimus gritted his teeth, he couldn’t help but get freaked out a bit from the older bot’s dark optics staring him down. He sighed, “You’re right….I mean we’ve been in tougher situations….”

Rung lifted his servo with a small grin, “What we need is to talk it out with Ultra Magnus and-”

“No”, Drift interrupted. He turned to the psychiatrist, “What we need is Hotlock.”

The captain’s optics shot wide open and turned to Drift, detecting a familiar sound he hasn’t heard in years. Rung’s lip twitched as he repeated the swordsman, “H-Hotlock?...”. The orange bot felt a jolt of fear run up his spinal cable as he twiddled his fingers together in attempt to calm himself.

Drift walked to the hot rod, “Rodimus, fuse with me.” Rodimus slowly formed a grin across his face as his optics shined brightly.

Rodimus grabbed Drift’s arm, “You’re serious!? Oh! OH! You’re serious Drift?!” The white bot nodded with a half smile. Rodimus flashed a smile and made an excited screeching noise. He shook Drift’s arm playfully, “OH DRIFT!” The captain let go of Drift’s arm and walked in circles as he hugged himself “Oh man! Oh man! Oh man! Ha..haha….hahahhahah! hehehehe! Yes! We can make him again!!!”

Chromedome put his servos on his hips. “Oh great….Guess I can finally see what this infamous thing looks like in person….” Rewind tapped his head camera, “I can get footage of an actual fusion! And with a Prime bot too!”

Tailgate scratched his head, “Did they say fusion?...” He heard Cyclonus made a displeased grunting noise behind him. The mini bot considered that was a yes.

Whirl also made a squeal of excitement, “HA!! DO IT! I NEED TO SEE THIS! This is so gonna end badly!” Swerve folded his arms, “I need to see this too. I’ve only heard rumors of this fusion form…Well I hear a lot of things but fusions aren’t that talked about on the ship surprisingly.” Whirl poked Swerve’s head, “Well you can thank Ultra Maggie for not allowing any talk of fusion. the guy hates it all because he’s seen Decepticons use it and that’s it. I know it.”

The cyan and white bot finally calculated what was going on and was getting excited too. Tailgate walked up to Rodimus, smiling under his faceplate. “Oh captain, I’m so happy for you and Drift! It's such a big thing to announce to a group of people! I mean it’s kind of out of nowhere but the right moments aren’t always well planned out!”

Rodimus’s smile disappeared into a confused expression as he stared at the mech below him. “What are you talking about Tailgate?”

“You and Drift said that you were gonna fuse right?

Rodimus arched a brow, “Yeeaaaah.”

“So….You guys are pretty much taking another step in you’re comradery between each other! I mean it takes so much trust but you guys seem close!”

Rodimus glanced at Drift in confusion. The swordsman just snickered. The captain looked back at Tailgate. “Uh….”

Rewind walked up to Tailgate’s side. “I keep forgetting that this guy right here is probably older than I am! You see, my captain, Tailgate is talking about how fusion used to be!” The archiving mech flashed another screen in the middle of the group, projecting two basic mechs combining into one.

“Fusion used to be-”

“Sacred.”

Everyone turned to Cyclonus, who was folding his arms.

“Fusion used to be a sacred practice between two bots who truly trusted each other and gave us transformers an opportunity to get closer to people we truly cared for. To feel another’s feeling, to meld into a new mind, and to feel at peace…..”

The horned ex-soldier gritted his teeth and his hands grasped tighter on his arms. “And now…..Now it’s used by you Autobots and Decepticons as a war tactic! People eventually finding out that fusing lead to a more powerful form between the two mechs. Using a practice that represented trust is now used as a cheap way to make more powerful soldiers! Makes me sick to my core….” Cyclonus turned his back on the group, “If you autobots want to do something stupid by fusing those two brash bots together go ahead. Tailgate, come.”

The cyan and white bot blinked his optics. “W-What? No! I wanna see them fuse! You’re curious! I know it Cyclonus!” He only got a low grunt from the horned bot and started walking away.

Tailgate turned to the rest of the group, “Oh whatever! Come on everyone, ya’ll wanna see Drift and Rodimus fuse!”

The group mumbled in agreement. It would be amazing to see a fusion done in front of them. Whirl waved his claws in the air, “HELL YEAH! Bring out the demon!!!”

Rodimus ran behind Drift and pressed his servos on the swordsman's back. “Come on Drift! LETS FUSE-”

**“STOP!”**

A voice shouted from the side of the group. Everyone turned to see a slightly panicked looking Rung with his servos curled into a fist. He walked to Drift, mouth twitching slightly before speaking.

“Drift. Please think about this!”

The white bot shrugged off Rodimus’s hands and turned to the psychiatrist, “What’s wrong Rung?” The captain huffed and gave Rung a frustrated look. The smaller bot ignored Rodimus’s look toward him.

“Listen I’ve studied fusions for a millions of years, I’ve been assigned for monitoring fusions before the war got really nasty. I actually looked at the info when you and Rodimus fused last time. You and Rodimus can get…”, Rung cocked one of his brows, “Aggressive when you two are fused after a short time. Lets just go back and contact Ultra Magnus and try to get to another nearby planet or anything but this!”

Drift placed a servo on Rung’s shoulder, “We barely have any fuel left for another take off. This prison facility is our last hope Rung.” He gave a warm smiled at the smaller bot, “I’m sure that me and Rodimus can handle each other! We won’t stay fused for long! I promise!”

Rung worried expression didn’t change. “ Drift I-”

Rodimus gave a hard shove Drift away from the others and began walking, “Look nerd! If you wanna go hide behind that big, OCD hunk of metal and be a coward go ahead. Me and Drift are gonna do something amazing that’ll give us the ticket to that fuel tank in that prison with no problem. Now come on before I see more jets flying above us!”

Rung sighed and rubbed the side of his head. _“I tried…”_

Drift and Rodimus distanced themselves from the group a couple of meters away. The two stood apart, facing forward at each other.

Rewind clicked on his camera while Chromedome stood over him. Swerve folded his arms in anticipation. Tailgate walked up beside Rung, still looking stressed.  “Do you think they’ll turn into something cool?”, the mini bot asked cheerfully. Rung looked down at Tailgate, catching the attempt at being positive. “They’re going to turn into a monster…”, he mumbled. The cyan optics of the minibot turned to the two captains, feeling a small shiver run down his spinal cord.

The air fell silent once again. The two bots breathed and looked back up into each other’s optics. Rodimus tightened his servos and smirked. Drift slowly lifted his servos up to chest height. Both of their eyes began to shine a brighter color.

“Synchronize….”, the white bot spoke aloud as both of the mechs’s optics flashed pure white in a flash. The swordsman began rolling his hip joints smoothly from side to side. His shoulders moving slightly in synch to his hips. Still holding his servos up, Drift gave Rodimus a small smile.

Rodimus responded with an excited grin. He stretched his servos out to his sides, withdrawing them back to the opposite sides of his shoulders. He began moving his servos in front of him, gesturing a square around his upper body. Rodimus stopped quickly with his hands in the air slowly moving back to his sides as he began walking up to Drift slowly.

The captain stopped just in front of Drift, he slowly began stepping around the swordsman with a smirk on his face. Drift moved his hands down, his body still moving in a slow hip shake. The white bot quickly turned to Rodimus and took a couple of steps backwards, still keeping his rhythm. Rodimus walking toward Drift to follow.

From afar, Tailgate was scratching his head. “I’ve never seen fusion dancing like this in the archives.” Chromedome answered, “That’s because you haven’t seen the ones used for power. They are very...modern I should say, they aren’t formal anymore.” Tailgate looked at the others, seeing how everyone’s attention is glued to their captains silently. The bot even saw Cyclonus cold staring from the back, his arms still folded with a fierce frown. Whirl grabbed Tailgate’s shoulders and turned him back to the captains, “Come on buddy, you’re about to miss the best part…”

Both of the captains’ optics were as brightly shining as they could get, their own metal bodies starting to glow. Drift stopped stepping back, slithering his servos up the side of his body. As he slowly stopped at his neck, Drift gave his 1st captain one last smile. Rodimus quickly walked up to Drift, taking one of the swordsman’s servos and placing his own hand behind Drift’s lower back in an instant. Rodimus pulled in Drift, embracing him very closely. The two of them suddenly melted into each other, casting a white light with reds and oranges swirling within them. The air picked up wind out of nowhere, wisping around the two morphing figures as it grew taller and taller.

Tailgate’s eyes were widened, seeing the morphed being took shape of a figure. Spikes jetted out of his head and broad shoulders! Wing like hood covers formed on its back! The tall being stood up tightening its form into to a Transformer like body as the bright light cocooning it shattered into pieces, revealing what was brewing under it.

The towering Transformer consisting of red, orange, and white with bright blue lights flickering on certain places held up his servos and let out a loud laughing noise. When he calmed down he looked at his body, “Man it feels so good to be alive….”, he hummed.

The group walked up to the transformer slowly but Tailgate ran up to the mech. “Are you... Hotlock?!”, he cried out, not even trying to hide his excitement. Chromedome blinked and stuck out his hand, “W-Wait! Tailgate!” Rewind stopped filming, “Hotlock is a stable fusion right?....I mean I’ve heard that he can be a bit wild but he’s stable right?”

The large mech turned his 4 bright blue optics toward the little ant standing under him. Hotlock smirked and bending his whole body down as much as he could go. Tailgate backed up, now starting to feel hesitant to even try and talk to the thing. The fusion looked at him and gave him a nasty grin.

“Yes you little shortcake...I’m Hotlock…”, he purred.

“O-Oh...C-cool….I mean you’re amazing looking! I-I haven’t seen a fusion before in person! You two were awesome! You even sound different! You voice is lower than Rodimus’s or Drift’s...”, Tailgate could feel the words spilling out of his mouth. Such a big fusion! It had to be like 3 times the height of Ultra Magnus!

Hotlock, still on his knees and hands bending down, huffed at him. “Thanks you little pipsqueak,” He reached an index finger toward Tailgate, “So…Are you a Decepticon?...”

Rung ran up behind Tailgate and took him by the shoulders to lead him away. “Tailgate don’t get so close to him!”

The fused bot grinned and leaned up. “Oooh look what came out from behind the others! Another little shortcake...but this one actually looks weaker….” The doctor bit down on his tongue, _“Don’t smart talk him...He’s can smash me with one foot if I piss him off…Don’t humor a unstable fusion.”_

“Tailgate we need to back away from him now!” Rung insisted. Tailgate felt himself walking backwards from the towering mech.

“B-But I talk to him! He’s not mean!”

“Just believe me you need to get away-”

Hotlock punched the ground hard, the rumble nearly knocked everyone on the ground. He got back up on his two feet and stomped towards Tailgate and Rung.

“ **_You pieces of scrap!_ ** Don’t you ignore your captain! I asked you a question! Are you Decepticons?”

Now the minibot was confused, “Hotlock it’s us! We’re Autobots, of course!” Did Rodimus and Drift accidentally bump heads to hard when they were dancing? Why would Hotlock forget who we were?

“Wonderful, his memories are already getting screwed up. He’s might be acting worse than the last time he was fused and documented,” Rung mumbled to himself. He took a deep breath and actually decided to give the fusion an order. _“God...Primus...Who ever is watching, please don’t let this be my final act…”_ He walked pass Tailgate and up to the large bot. Taking a breathe of air, Rung glanced up.

“N-N-Now listen Hotlock! Y-Y-you were…..formed…..,” The 4 optics glaring hard above was giving him a cold feeling. Rung didn’t like how Hotlock was being quiet and giving him an anticipating smirk, “You were formed so you could help your fellow Autobots! And you’re an Autobot and since y-you’re so strong, we need you to take care of some Decepticons…”

All four optics brightened up when the magic word was said, “Decepticons....Now you’ve got my attention…” Hotlock bent down, “So where are these Decepticons nerd?”

Whirl sprinted up from behind and up to the fusion. “Ooo! Ooooo! I know where they are my beast of a bot! Name’s Whirl! Love how you turned out! Read how much of a total death machine you can be!”

“Whirl what are you doing?!”, said Rung.

Whirl turned, “Oh don’t worry doc! I’ll show this guy to the place and I can keep an eye on him! Trust me!” He turned back and pointed to the distant prison building on the horizon. “You see those ugly buildings in the distance? Those are where the Decepticons are! Just go nuts!”

Hotlock stared at the prison and grinned a sharp smile. “Will do….”, he purred. The large bot was about to take off until he heard a tiny voice. He turned to see that white and blue ant wave his arm at him, “H-Hey uh Hotlock? Are you gonna destroy them with your bare hands? They might have guns….”

The fusion grinned at him, “Wanna see something cool you little shortcake?” His bicep lights glowed and ejected out two long swords resembling Drift’s. As the two brightly shining swords floated vertically, Hotlock reached over to the back of his neck and pulled out a larger sword also resembling Drift’s long sword he held on his back. The fusion placed the shining blade of the sword on his other servo and squeezed the hilt out longer. Hotlock held out the Spear like glowing weapon and the other two long swords attached themselves onto the bottom blade part. The two newly attached swords pointed the tips towards the middle sword.

Hotlock jabbed his pitchfork into the ground in front of the white and blue minibot. Tailgate clenched his servos and raised his shoulders. “Woooaaah! You can make a pitchfork from Drift’s swords?!?! Cool!!!!” The towering bot chuckled, “You like that ya little ant?” He turned around to the prison, “Well I’m getting bored with you lame scraps, I’m gonna have fun….” And just like that the large bot sprinted off to the prison. Whirl took a running start and jumped into the air, transforming into a jet and flew next to Hotlock. “Hey wait up big guy!”

Tailgate walked up beside Rung. “So…..how come Hotlock didn’t transform? It’ll be quicker in his alt mode right? Did his alt mode change also?!”

Rung took off his glasses and made a weird sound of a sigh and an “ugh” combined together, “No...when bots fuse, you’re sacrificing your alt mode. Hotlock will have to walk on his two legs. Maybe that’ll wear him out quicker so he can un-fuse sooner…”

The others walked up from behind. Rewind scratched the bottom of his face plate, “I hope he doesn’t wreck any of those files in there. Could be passing up a gold mine of info that’s lost at this point.”

Chromedome placed his servos on his hips. “Man, those documents weren’t kidding about his attitude. Usually you hear that kind of talk out of people from Tarn…” Swerve walked out behind of Chrome, “So uh….that guy is not gonna last long right? We’re not gonna have to put up with Hotlock when he comes back right?”

Cyclonus was the last to walk up to the group, he stopped near Tailgate. He looked at the large bot walking further from them while Whirl flew around the bot, probably annoying it to hell. The group stood there quietly for a minute until the orchid bot spoke up.

“I hope all of you realise that when that THING comes back, we’re dead.”

Tailgate looked up at Cyclonus, “What?! How come? He’s so cool and big! And he even showed me his pitchfork weapon!”

Cyclonus made a deeper scowling expression. “Tailgate, fusions aren’t supposed to have four eyes.”

“They’re not?”

“No.”

“So what does that mean?”

Rewind turned his head to Tailgate, “Well... that’s usually a big sign that the fusion isn’t stable and they can get really chaotic if they’re not kept under control. And when I say chaotic, I mean ‘total destruction to anyone remotely near them’.”

Tailgate felt a rush of panic, “H-Huh?! You can’t be serious! Hotlock is just Drift and Rodimus! They wouldn’t want to hurt us! They’re friends….They should be an ok fusion right?”

Chromedome sighed. “It's not that black and white Tailgate. Like Cyclonus said, when two bots fuse, your sharing your mind, memories, personality... everything. If they’re not that close, the new mind formed can’t comprehend each other’s mind properly. The fusion forms a new personality based of what it could gather from each of the bots. The two people don’t trust each other enough. In this case I’m sure Hotlock’s mind is gathering most of his personality from Rodimus. Drift might be trying to conceal his past memories to Rodimus, we all know that guy doesn’t wanna bring up anything about his past.” Chromedome tilted his head, “I could talk about how fusion affects the brain node for hours! But I think we should concern ourselves with this current situation we’ve all in.”

Swerve raised a brow underneath his visor, “So who’s gonna have the honor of telling Ultra Magnus about this?”

Rewind quickly raised both his servos up, “We CANNOT tell Ultra Magnus about this! We’ll never hear the end of him ranting how fusion is a Decepticon war tactic and that practicing an “organic act” is against some law that Tyrest made! We need to keep this a secret!” He squeezed his index fingertip and thumb tip together and ran it across his mouthplate. “Zip our lips! Do we all have a deal? Repeat what I’m doing if you agree!”

Chromedome and Swerve did the gesture. Tailgate did the gesture gleefully. Cyclonus looked at Rewind with look that said, “I agree but I’m not doing that stupid gesture”. Rewind turned to Rung, who was still standing there with his glasses off and looking out to the prison. “Do we have a deal Rung?”, he repeated the zipper gesture.

Rung put back on his glasses and did the gesture to Rewind. The archivist made a happy expression behind his visor and mouth plate. “See? If we all just keep it a secret, we’ll be fine! And when Hotlock comes back to maybe kill us all, it’ll come off as a surprise! It was the captains’ idea!”

“We are so dead....”, Rung muttered to himself.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ultra Magnus is aggravated when the scouting group comes back without their two captains. He soon becomes suspicious weather or not the scouting group was telling the truth when hours start to pass. The captains do return eventually….

The walk back was strangely silent. The group, now with 3 members short, walked back to the Lost Light growing slowly larger as they approached. Tailgate walked between Rewind and Chromedome, constantly looking back at the prison structure in anticipation. The other mini bot softly jabbed his elbow on Tailgate’s.

“If you keep looking back like that, your head will get locked in place. You wanna have a twisted neck for the rest of your life?”

Tailgate quickly whipped his head back and look at Rewind. “It wouldn’t do that!........Would it?”, he second guessed himself as he placed a servo on his neck. Chromedome made a “pfft” noise behind his mouthplate. “Come on Tailgate have you ever heard of something like that happening to ANYONE?”, he placed his servo on Tailgate’s head. The blue and white bot looked at the floor, “Well…..I’ve only been awake for a couple of months so I guess not. I’m just curious. Like are Rodimus and Drift gonna go full rampage?” Tailgate looked up at Chromedome, “Is he gonna have a secret method that he and Whirl will take out all the evil prisoners and bring back the innocent ones that were left behind back on the ship? They totally would! I mean that would be the right thing to do…”

Chromedome’s covered mouth twitched, he glanced at Rewind for support but only got the same look. “Well…..Rodimus and Drift would….but I don’t know about Hotlock though….”, he took his servo off Tailgate’s head.

“Well it's not like he’ll forget about the plan right? He’s running on empty too! I have faith he’ll find the oil reserve!”, the young one gleefully commented.

“If there’s even is one….”, Chromedome muttered. Rewind shot a glare at his love, “THERE IS ONE! My files would never lie to me! This place is the furthest planet controlled by Cybertron! There’s a reserve either in that prison or somewhere on this planet!”

“Somewhere on this planet?!”, the lobotomist questioned loudly, gesturing his hands up.

Rewind covered his face with a servo. “Ugh! Come on! Please don’t panic…”, the dark gray minibot walked behind Tailgate and took Chromedome’s servo into his. “It’s gonna be ok Domey! I know it’s scary but we’ll be fine!”, he smiled.

Chromedome took a deep breath and sighed. He looked down at Rewind, “I...I’m sorry if I got snappy...I just don’t wanna see you starve or be in pain….”

Rewind lightly squeezed Chromedome’s servo, “I don’t either. But if I have to, it’ll hurt less when you’re next to me.”

Chromedome looked away, feeling his face increase in temperature. “It will?”

Rewind jabbed a finger at the taller bot’s side, “Well it won’t with that attitude!” Laughter escaped from Chromedome’s mouth when his lover didn’t stop poking him at random places.

“H-Hey s-stop Rewind! I’m t-ticklish!”

“Well this is one of the only ways I can cheer you up! I don’t want any worried looks from you!”, Rewind giggled.

Tailgate side stepped away from the love birds keeping to themselves. “ _Hmm. Chromedome and Rewind are really close….wonder if they fused? What would they even look like?_ ”, the minibot thought to himself. He felt another elbow jab to his arm by a grinning bartender. Tailgate blinked back into reality, “Huh?”

“Geez Tail. You getting affected by low energon too?”, asked Swerve, “Or didja get sick by those love cyberbirds?”

“Oh...Sorry Swerve. I was just thinking if Rewind and Chromedome ever fused…”

Swerve pointed at the mini bot, “Better be careful talking about fusions back on the ship.” Tailgate clinched his servos, “Ugh! Why does Ultra Magnus have such a problem with fusion? He’s like...what? A billion years old! He’s Optimus’s spark brother or something... He’s gotta know that fusion builds healthy relationships and trust!”

“Ok first off, he’s not a billion years old. We don’t live THAT long...Second, where the hell didja hear about Ultra Mags being Optimus Prime’s spark brother?” The bartender walked a little closer to Tailgate, “And third…..Look Tailgate, a lot of things have changed. A LOT. Back then, cold constructed bots were looked at as creepy knock offs of citizens that were ‘meant to be alive’ or some bigoted garbage talk like that. The point is that fusion back then was a romantic act, but since everyone found out that fusing with others can possibly grant a lot of power...I’m sorry buddy. And this was found out a couple thousand of years before the Great War and when fusion was actually allowed again….You can put two and two together. Nowadays, if you’re talking about fusing, you’re talking about a war technique for power. It’s still a major thing to ask someone but it's not romantic anymore....”

The young bot made a sad expression, “It's not romantic anymore?....”

“No”, Cyclonus answered from behind. The two minibots looked back to see the orchid mech walking behind them. Swerve flinched, “Geez big guy...You sure can sneak up on someone!”

Cyclonus huffed, “Fusion used to be such a wonderful event in two mech’s life. Tetrahex used to throw extravagant ceremonies when a couple announced that they wanted to permanently fuse.”

Tailgate looked up at Cyclonus, “Did you ever fuse Cyclonus?” The older bot gave him a quiet glare and looked forward. Tailgate tilted his head, daring to pry at Cyclonus’s response, “D-Do you wanna talk ab-”

Cyclonus ignored Tailgate and walked away from the two minibots. Swerve raised a brow, “Hmm. Seems like you struck a sensitive cord. Surprised he didn’t smack you for prying at his business.”

“Yea he’s hasn’t hit me in a while. Guess he got tired of it. He tells me a little bit about himself sometimes”, Tailgate answered.

Swerve looked around at the rest of the group coming close to the Lost Light resting quietly. He put a servo on his chin, “Hmm who’s not in front of us Tailgate?” The white and blue youngster twisted his neck from side to side and then behind him. He spotted Rung walked slowly as he held his data pad against his chest. Tailgate noticed him staring intensely ahead, his mouth moving but no sound was heard.

“Rung’s still in the back of us. I think he’s deep in thought. He keeps moving his mouth so I’m guessing that he’s talking to himself.”

Swerve turned around to look, “Ah yea. He’s staring off into another dimension. He must be mad because his brow bars are pointed down.”

“Brow bars?”, Tailgate asked.

Swerve smirked, “Yea that’s what I call them! I always found him to be the ‘human’ one of the group cuz of those things on his helm. He’s like some rare design of ‘mech with brows’ because I’ve never seen another bot with brows.”

“Well I’m gonna go walk with him!” Tailgate turned and ran up to Rung’s side and walked along. The psychiatrist didn’t even notice the minibot running to his side.

Tailgate frowned, “Um...Rung?”

Rung’s optics blinked and turned to see a white and blue bot walking next to him. “O-oh! I’m so sorry Tailgate. I didn’t even see you….”

“You looked really upset…..Is it about Hotlock?”, the minibot twiddled his fingers.

“I’d be lying if I said no….”, Rung sighed, “Maybe its the lack of proper oil levels in me but I’m really annoyed that Rodimus wouldn’t even consider the fact that Hotlock is an extreme gamble he’s taking. I know Drift wants to do this as safely as possible but our captain is taking this as an opportunity to just go on a power trip!”

“Gambling? Are you talking about if they’re stable?”

“Yes and they’re not a stable fusion. Optimus decided to do a very smart thing and have a master file on all autobot combinations and fusions that took place. Hotlock was under the major fusions that still need to be ‘trained’ and have supervision over.”

“Trained? Like a pet?”, Tailgate scratched his head.

Rung adjusted his specs, “Trained as in Drift and Rodimus need to get to know each other better. They briefly fused just for experimentation. That’s why Drift thinks he can keep Hotlock under control. He hasn’t been fused with Rodimus for an extended amount of time. I could’ve warned Drift about the consequences but of course Rodimus had to act like a pompous, egotistical, RUDE piece of-”

Rung immediately stopped talking when he noticed Tailgate gazing at him with a shocked expression. He unclenched his servos and looked down at the still surprised minibot.”I-I’m so sorry Tailgate! I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Gosh this whole situation is driving me insane.”

Tailgate took Rung’s servo and playfully rocked it back and forth, “Don’t worry so much Rung! You’re the psyche...psychic….psychiatrist of the whooooole ship! You know how to keep a cool head when stuff gets rough! You’ve been doing this for like what? A billion years?....Actually how old are you?”

Rung couldn’t help but give the youngster a soft chuckle. “You’re so full of energy….”, he felt his face turn hot, “I’ve been doing my job for a very, very long time….”

Tailgate tilted his head, “Longer than me?”

“Yes”

Tailgate’s optics widened, “Woah….Longer than Cyclonus?...”

The side of Rung’s mouth twitched a little, “Tailgate, it's rude to pry at people’s age.”

“So you ARE older than Cyclonus!”

Rung rolled his eyes and smirked, “Yes I’m an old bot….” He felt Tailgate squeeze his servo.

“I’m technically an old bot too!”, Tailgate lifted Rung’s servo in the air, “OLD BOTS! FILLED WITH KNOWLEDGE!”

Swerve busted out laughing at the amazing sight behind him. Chromedome and Rewind both turned to Tailgate and Rung, giving them a giggle. Rung’s face felt hot with embarrassment and lowered his intertwined servo down, “Ok Tailgate...Thank you...I think that’s enough attention.”

 

===

 

The remainder of the scouting group finally got back to the towering ship. Soft metal steps echoed in the docking hall until they reached the docking lounge. The group came to a halt as a standing Ultra Magnus walked to the group.

“Well? Did you all find anything?” He squinted his eyes and frowned harder than usual, “Where is Rodimus and Drift? And that empurata bot.”

Rewind walked up to the statuesque 2nd captain, clearing up his audio output module. “Rodimus personally wanted him, Drift, and Whirl to investigate this abandoned prison facility by themselves. He says they should be back in a few hours!”

Ultra Magnus’s mouth contorted, “A couple of hours….At an abandoned prison facility?...”

The archivist waved his servo, “I know it sounds dangerous, and we told the captain that it's dangerous, but you know him! Our brave and loving captain! Look, the two captains wanted to tell you to not worry about anything! And Whirl went with them because he didn’t wanna be bored on the ship!”

The 2nd captain leaned in and casted a quiet glare at Rewind. Rewind felt his spine shiver as the air felt heavy, ” _...He’s checking to see if I’m lying. Primus he can be scary when he wants to…._ ” Tailgate’s shifted nervously. He felt a cold servo land on his head, looking up to see that it belonged to Cyclonus. The old bot gave a look to Tailgate. The minibot looked down, trying to not look nervous.

Ultra Magnus leaned back up into a proper stance, “I don’t see any doubt in your optics so I guess I believe you.”

Rewind nervously laughed, “Oh Captain! You’re such a comedian!” The giant officer mech tilted his head in confusion. “Comedian?...Hmm.”, Ultra Magnus turned around towards the doors, “Well I’m going back into the captain’s deck. Try to get...something to drink, I know you all must be exhausted.” With that, he walked out of the room, the metal stomping fading off.

Swerve’s shoulders dropped, “WHEW!!! Rewind you have one hell of a poker face! You’ve gotta play on card night!”

Chromedome placed a servo on Rewind’s shoulder, “I tell him that all the time…”

The gray minibot looked away, flustered, “Oh come on….heh….you’re flattering me! But man that was scary as hell! But don’t think we’re in the clear everyone!”

Rewind walked to the middle of the group and lowered his voice, everyone turned to him in response.

“Look. We successfully got past part one, but we’re not in the clear. Ultra Magnus could be behind that door as we speak! Listening to us and stuff. If someone asks about Rodimus, Drift or Whirl, just rub it off like we don’t know. The three of them should be back within an hour since Hotlock’s power is known to be quite destructive so he shouldn’t have problems clearing out the prison. So just keep it up folks! Our captains will be back as soon as we know it!”

Swerve placed his servos on his hips, “Well if we’re done here, it's time to go whip up more diluted energon. It tastes like trash but its energy for us... Sometimes I wish we didn’t have to rely on this stuff.” The bartender walked out of the room.

Chromedome grabbed Rewind’s servo, “Wanna help Swerve? Not much to do here since half the computers here are shut down.” Rewind shrugged, “Sure why not? That diluted energon ain’t that bad when Swerve makes it.” The couple ran to catch up to Swerve, servos still connected.

Tailgate looked up at Cyclonus, “So...What are you gonna do Cyclonus?”

The orchid bot began walking away. “Not being here.” With a door slam, Cyclonus left Tailgate and Rung in the room alone. The minibot looked to the side and scratched his mouthplate, “So... uh...What are yoooou gonna do Rung?”

“I’ll stay here for a bit”, Rung placed a servo on Tailgate’s back, “You go with the others, I feel like they need your enthusiasm.” The blue and white mech smiled under his faceplate and ran off to Swerve’s.

Rung found a chair in the middle of the docking lobby and turned his tablet back online. He slid his finger across the lit surface, going through programs until he got to the communicator. _“Might as well check on Whirl and Hotlock.”_ He found Whirl’s comm line and dialed through.

“Whirl?...Whirl are you there? How is Hotlock acting?” Rung asked through the tablet. Nothing but erratic lines and sounds of static answered. The doctor contorted his face and tried again, “Whirl?...Don’t mess with me! If you’re doing this on purpose then it's not funny! This is extremely important!”

Loud static answered Rung again. He grunted, closing his eyes in attempt to calm his nerves. Rung looked around at the spacious room. The lobby was very peaceful for being on the very first floor of the ship. The low hum vibrating off the walls and nobody really came down here unless the ship had to stop. _“I’ll remember this room the next time I need a quiet place...”_

“Okay….I’ll try Ho- I mean Rodimus and Drift…”, he corrected himself. The cameras here might be recording. “ _I can’t risk getting caught saying Hotlock. Ultra Magnus is so watchful over the security footage around this ship...._ ” Rung tried the first captain’s communicator. He’s not even sure if a fusion can even receive a call from someone.

 

“Rodimus?.....Captain?....Are you there?...This is Rung….”, a low white noise came up.

 

An eyebrow perked up, Rung tried dialing at Rodimus again. He raised his audio input levels as the white noise started up again.

 

“Rodimus?”

 

White noise rose up again.

 

“Rodimus?”

 

A soft groan came up. Rung’s optics widened, _“What?”_

 

“Rodi-”

 

 

Rung stopped when he heard the noise interrupt him. He could barely make out what the noise said.

 

“*zzzzkzzz* Shhu-*kzzzt*...up…Shut….u-*zzzrrr*….shut…*bzzt*”

 

The psychiatrist stared at his tablet, trying to understand what has happening. _“Did Rodimus tell me to shut up?”_

Rung clenched the tablet, “Rodimus if you’re purposely trying to ignore me, stop it. You’re an extremely unstable fusion an-”

“Ugh! Shove it you nag bot.”

“Nag bot? I’m seeing if you’re-”

“You’re that weird scrawny aft bot aren’t you? I haven’t even spoke to you for long and I can instantly recognize you by your voice.”

Rung sighed, “Well you should because you’re a fusion. You are Rodimus and Drift, you both know who I am! Are you at the prison? Are they as dangerous as we-”

A glitched scrambled grunt boomed throughout the room. Rung panicked and turned down the tablet’s volume. He adjusted his specs, “I’d appreciate it if you would be less arrogant and interrupting.”

A pause was left in the air. The psychiatrist was about to say something until the tablet started talking again.

“There? Was that nice enough for your sensitive ‘whittle itty bitty’ spark?” Hotlock responded in a mocking tone and a staticy cackle.

Rung squeezed the tablet and sighed, “Listen to me. Are you inside the prison? Did you find any fuel or supplies?”

Another quiet pause came from the tablet. Rung spoke up, “Why are you pausing?” Nothing came up for a minute until Hotlock spoke up again.

“Are you still there? I’m busy working.”

“Working at what?”, Rung questioned.

“Mmmm...its a secret you little wimp…”

Rung’s mouth twitched, “Just….Tell me…”

“Ooo, the little runt lowered his voice! My my, you might have a spark in that little body of yours…”

 _“This is getting annoying…You can’t let this thing get to you. You’ve had worse people to deal with. But Hotlock is definitely on the list now.”_ Rung eased up the tension on his tablet.

“Fine then, Hotlock, if you’re going to be a horrible  then I’ll hang up.”

“Ugh finally, thought I’d nev-”

Rung disconnected from Rodimus’s feed. He sat there for a few minutes in silence, “Maybe I can contact Drift if I got through Rodimus’s comm line.” The slim mech dialed through Drift’s line.

“Drift? This is Rung. Can you hear me?”

Typical low static noise appeared again. Rung pressed on, “Drift. I know you can hear me. Please try and tell me something!”

“Rung?”, a familiar voice called out.

“Drift?! Are you ok? Is the fusion becoming too much to handle? Listen you’re a very unstable fusion and if you can’t handle it, please just unfuse!”

“Its fine Rung! We’re clearing out the prison right now!”

“Clearing it? Did you adleast talk to the people there?”

Drift chuckled lightly at Rung’s question. The psychiatrist made a confused expression, “Drift what is funny?” Drift breathed and began cackling, his audio glitching back into Hotlock’s.

“Too late to do that!”

Rung felt his spark go cold, “Rodimus?! Are you suppressing Drift?”

“WILL YOU QUIT CALLING ME RODIMUS! My name is HOTLOCK!”, the tablet screamed.

Rung’s optics glanced at the upper corners of the walls for cameras, he couldn’t risk saying Hotlock’s name out loud. Raising the tablet closer, Rung lowered his voice, “Hotlock I know you haven’t been ‘yourself’ for long but it would be beneficial to both of us if you would just try to cooperate with me.”

A scoffing sound came from the tablet.

Rung continued, “All of us, including you, need energon. We need fuel for the ship. If you can’t help us then we ALL might be stranded here and have to go into hibernation….or even die from starvation.”

Hotlock stayed quiet for a couple of seconds until he made a disgruntled noise, “Fraggin’ nag bot….FINE! What was the plan again?”

“The plan was to see if there was any supplies or fuel for the ship and unfuse before coming back to the ship. Understand?”

“I’ll do one of those things, you figure out which one I’ll do~”, Hotlock hummed, “Well its been a pleasure talking to you...It hasn’t….I’m being sarcastic….Honestly listening to you has made me stab these people harder than usual.”

The psychiatrist's optics widened, “Wait, are some of them innocent? And where is Whirl?! Is he ok?!”

“Oh dear, my audio input just went out. Later dork.” A glitched noise cracked from the tablet and the air fell silent again. Rung tried contacting Rodimus and Drift again but nothing came up, not even white noise or static. Rung felt his spark go cold, he kept pressing to contact the captains and Whirl until he gave up after the 5th time.

He put a servo on his helm, “This was such a bad idea…The biggest mistake I should’ve stopped…” A part of Rung thought about coming clean to Ultra Magnus. But then he was reminded that he, along with the others, would have been thrown into the prisons for lying.

Rung sighed and adjusted his glasses, “I made a promise and I have to keep it. I have to keep my mouth shut.”

He got up from the chair and headed back to his office. The feeling of dread and panic still lingering on his shoulders.

 

===

 

The feeling of silence flowing through some halls gave Ultra Magnus a chill. He wasn’t used to the ship not making it’s smooth white hum gave off from the gigantic engines that propelled all these mechs across the galaxies. But what truly caused the cold feeling was seeing the poor cybertronians looking miserable. Ultra Magnus felt useless, his duty was to keep people content and protecting them from harm. The crew members either sitting either in their assigned rooms or just sitting in the hall trying to pass the time was somewhat sad.

Everyone knew that power had to be conserved so all of entertainment rooms, chem labs, and bars had to be shut down of public access. Bartenders and other energy service employees had the important job to mix up watered down energon on schedule. The officer wasn’t much into drinking anything over regular grade oil and never will….as much as Rodimus constantly pestered that he needed to get “slammed” once and awhile, whatever that meant. Watered down energon tasted a bit gross but it did make rations stretch. In reality they do have enough energon for people but it can only last for a very short time. It was a total mystery if and when help from an Autobot base close by could give them enough fuel to make it to a proper rest place to get supplies. Its the waiting that was the hard part, the ship travelled to a really far edge of a quadrant where there wasn’t many planets near by.

Those 3 decepticon stowaways on the ship that stole most of their energon, wrecked some communication machinery, and nearly destroyed the fuel tanks on the engines sure screwed them up. The towering 2nd officer always got pissed just thinking about it. He should’ve been patrolling the lower deck more, should’ve known that the cameras slowly getting knocked offline one by one was a sign that something bad was happening. But the criminals were gone now, took an escape ship, and left. Nothing left to do but endure, he remembers his higher ups telling him that the trip might be fruitless but he agreed to do this.

Ultra Magnus stiffened his face to his default expression whenever someone asked if they were gonna starve to death. Part of him wanted to say that help was coming but he couldn’t say any more. He had even more priorities since his two fellow captains thought it was a great idea to leave him to tend to the ship. “I’m not a leader…..I can’t do this alone”, he occasionally told himself. Walking all over the ship, tending to upset members, keeping security officers in check, and constantly being followed by bots shorter than him with data pads and constantly talking. After about 3 hours of doing constant work and dealing with people, Ultra Magnus dragged his large body into his suite and sat on his berth to rest. It didn’t take long for him to decide on taking a nap.

Optics shot wide open, the room looking a bit unclear. The second captain blinked and got up from his deep slumber and stretched his joints. He looked out the window, the mix of pink and purple colors stretching afar. Ultra Magnus sighed, wishing that the ship was back in space and on track.

An internal clock popped up on his hub. It showed precisely how long he was asleep, even down to the milliseconds.

“So I was asleep for about 3 hours…I guess I was tired.”, he lifted himself up from the berth and walked out of his room. He walked back to the captain’s deck until he immediately stopped.

_Rodimus. Drift._

Those two almost escaped Ultra Magnus’s head. Where were those two mechs? He wanted to believe that minibot archivist, but a familiar sense told him not to.

Ultra Magnus was agitated that the two captains haven’t even tried messaging him adleast once an hour! The whole ship is on a foreign planet that’s open to attack! What if a Decepticon ship finds them sitting without any power? That’s the problem with those mechs! They two can’t think ahead! He wasn’t in the mood to get angry, there was work to be done. The large blue mech continued down the halls, mentally preparing himself for the ship assistants to bombard him with problems and statistics.

 

===

 

Swerve’s bar was dimly lit compared to how it used to shine. It was quiet with only Swerve, Chromedome, Rewind, and Tailgate sitting at the bar alone, the rest of the room was vacant. The bartender was busy cleaning out the empty energon barrels behind the bar, whistling to himself. With a another swing, Tailgate swirled around in his chair out of boredom, the chair squeaking loudly at each rotation.

Chromedome turned away from Rewind’s chatter and stopped Tailgate directly by pressing an index finger on the little mech’s helm, “Hey kid, I know you’re bored as hell but that squeaking is driving me and everyone else nuts.”

Rewind placed an elbow on the bar, “He’s fine. It’s not bothering me…”

Tailgate looked down with a sad expression, “I’m sorry Chromedome. I just wish everything wasn’t shut down. I miss helping out everyone! The energy all around the ship feels so dead!”

The tall mech took his finger off Tailgate’s head. Rewind leaned forward, “Didn’t you have fun mixing up watered down energon?”

“You guys told me to just pass out cups!”

“Well yeah. Now you know how donation services feel…”

“But everyone just went back to their rooms...Nobody stayed. Not even Skids or Trailbreaker…”

Rewind tilted his head, “Don’t you remember what Ultra Magnus said? He shut down the bars to conserve Energon. Hell I’m surprised you, me, and Chromedome didn’t get in trouble for staying...One of the dock assistants said that Ultra Magnus was busy doing something. That’s why he’s not here throwing us out of the bar.”

“Hey I’m glad you guys helped out! I can’t stand grouchy folks who decide to give me mean looks!”, Swerve swiped his cup and took sip of his modified drink, “It ain’t my fault I have to water down my own drinks! Either they can drink my mix or go down to that Visages place for watered down energon!”

Chromedome turned to the bartender, “I heard that place’s mix drinks taste like garbage compared to your stuff Swerve.”

The chatterbox mech scratched his head, “Really?! I think my mixture is garbage…”

Rewind shrugged, “Watered down energon sucks in general. It ain’t that bad when you get used to it. Wasn’t there talk about upgrading mechs to be more energy efficient?”

Chromedome contorted his face under his mask, “Oh please! That’s just a ploy! They did do that to a few ‘Made to Order’ mechs when building them. Not sure it’ll worked on bots like us. Made to Order bots have a way different built compared to typical cold constructed or forged bots.”

Rewind looked down, “They did advertise it as working for forged bots also.”

Swerve grinned, “Well I heard-”

A sharp bell tone interrupted the conversation. The intercom systems buzzed on and white noise echoed across the ship.

“Attention Lost Light crew. This is second in command, Ultra Magnus, speaking. I need to speak with the people who scouted with the first and third captain immediately. This includes Swerve, Tailgate, Rung, Chromedome, and Rewind. That is all.” The intercom buzzed off.

Tailgate’s optics widened as he looked at the others. Everyone shared the same nervous look. Rewind coughed and jumped off his seat, “Well guess my plan lasted shorter than I thought…”

Tailgate slowly climbed down to the floor, “Are we gonna be thrown in jail?!” Swerve waved his hand, “I doubt it….but this is Ultra Magnus so he might think spended a few days in the cells will help us.”

The white and blue minbot shivered. Rewind turned to Tailgate, “Don’t worry! We’re not gonna get hurt ok? Technically it’s not our fault that Drift and Rodimus wanted to fuse! Just leave the talking to me!”

The group exited the bar. Swerve tapping the data panel next to the door to lock it.

 

===

 

The captain’s deck stretched wide and far on a horizontal line, the slightly different tints of ocean blue walls covering the control center. A single long strip of glass traveled along the walls, showing the ink black darkness sky of the planet washing away from the peach sunrise slowly creeping up from the right. Dark purple shards of crystal rocks stood like glass blades in the pink ground, some stretching up halfway up the ship. The bright, large sun star casted a little light across the plains, a reflection of light purple light managed to shine into the deck. Short towers of computer screens of maps, graphs, radars were lined up row by row. A few people were looking at the bright screens diligently as Ultra Magnus stood straight in the middle of the room.

The sound of doors sliding open and shutting made the second captain turn to see the scouting crew be two members short. Ultra Magnus walked up to the group, squinting his eyes down at the three minibots and the mneurosurgeon huddled together. Swerve scratched his head and looked at the window outside, “That’s a beautiful view of the planet you’ve got up here! You seem like the type of person to stare at sunrises and sunsets….”

“I’m not.”, the cop answered with a straight face.

“O-oh…”, Swerve responded nervously with a smile.

“Where is the psychiatrist?”

The group turned around at the door confused. Rewind turned back to Ultra Magnus, “I’m sure Rung is on his way!”

Tailgate raised his hand up, “Hey um...Ultra Magnus sir? How come you didn’t call Cyclonus?” The towering blue mech turned his attention to the small white and blue bot. He leaned in and presented a pointed index finger towards Tailgate’s face. “Because I’ll ask the ex-Decepticon about this one on one.” The little mech felt small and scrunched his shoulders together, “But-”.

The doors slid back open again, revealing Cyclonus with his sword equipped on his back. Ultra Magnus leaned back up and gave the purple bot a straight face, prompting Cyclonus to walk up and stop near Tailgate.

“I am here captain.”, the old swordsman responded.

“I see”, said the second captain. He looked at everyone with an annoyed expression, “I bought all of you here because I wanna know where the hell is Rodimus and Drift! Its been past 3 hours and in the Official Autobot Ship Safety manual, section 1 of article 3, paragraph 16 says: ‘Captains of a vessel of a size more than 2 miles, should be in contact with other officers every hour!’ The two of them have broken this rule almost 4 times! Rebellious mechs….”

Chromedome, Swerve, Rewind, and Tailgate’s shoulders twitched almost in unison, looking away and shifting slightly. Ultra Magnus gritted his teeth and stepped up to the group.

“Listen here! You all better come clean about Rodimus and Drift! I can’t get them on their communications lines! And I can’t even get a signal on Whirl’s comm line! What did you all do with them?!” The giant mech shot a glare at the group until he stopped on Cyclonus, not even reacting to his intimidation tactics. He stepped up to the old mech with a snarling expression.

Cyclonus raised a servo, the palm facing the second captain, “Before you start yelling in my face about me using my ‘decepticon ways’ of keeping everyone’s mouths shut, I didn’t do anything. You might as well put me in the cells if you don’t believe me. I refuse to be a part of a dumb misunderstanding.” The giant cop was about to say something until he heard small metal footsteps running up to Cyclonus. The two of them looked down to see Tailgate with his arms stretched out in front of the orchid mech as in making a separation between the two taller mechs.

“W-Wait! Don’t throw Cyclonus in the jail cells! It's scary as hell down there and he didn’t do anything! Honestly!”, the blue and white minibot belted out. The workers turning from their monitors to look at the commotion in the middle of the room.

Ultra Magnus gave Tailgate and Cyclonus a dark expression and quietly turned away from the two of them. “ _These mechs are being so damn annoying! I’m seconds away from taking out my gun!”,_ the cop walked in a small circle, looking at the ground in thought. The room kept a silent and awkward air around everyone. The heavy footsteps of the cop pacing around echoed for a few minutes until he stopped and turned at the scouting group. “Well if nobody is going to be a the bigger person and speak up, then maybe we all should go back out and see where exactly is Rodimus and Drift is.”

Rewind’s optics brightened up, “Hold up! We don’t have to! They told us that they should’ve been back here!”

Ultra Magnus lowered his head, “AND WHERE ARE THEY?!”

A loud chattering noise was heard behind the door, the group and Ultra Magnus turned their glances to the source. The panels slid open as Rung quickly walked in with his datapad in his hands. The pad was giving off noise as the doctor desperately trying to turn it off. He stopped and looked up to see practically everyone looking at him.

“S-sorry I’m late?”, Rung said.

Ultra Magnus stepped up to the orange mech and pointed at Rung’s datapad. “What were you doing? And why weren’t you here when I announced on the intercom that the scouting group had to report to the captain’s deck approximately 10 minutes ago?”

The doctor instinctively hugged the datapad against his chest, “I was...making a call.”

“To who?”, Ultra Magnus darted a glare at Rung.

“It was...to Whirl. I wanted to check up on them”, Rung answered hesitantly. He glanced at Swerve, Rewind and Chromedome standing off to the side.

“Did Whirl pick up?”

“No. He didn’t…”

The cop grunted loudly and clenched his fist, “I’m tired of these dumb games you all are playing!” The towering mech stomped back to the center of the room, his fans hummed to ease the heat coming off of his frame. Tailgate looked around at everyone in the room nervously. He caught the other workers in the room looking up from their monitors again, looking out the window. Tailgate looked out the window also, only seeing the typical sea of spiky purple rocks standing up from the pink sand. A strange movement in the rocks caught his attention.

Swerve caught Tailgate looking at the window as well as Cyclonus. He looked over at Rewind and Chromedome looking at the window with a disturbed expression, Swerve glanced at the window to see a tall dark figure knocking with….smoke emitting from it? Other workers got up from their seats and walked up to the window. The bartender looked at Ultra Magnus who had turned back to the group with a more stern look than usual.

“If none of you are serious and want to continue playing this game, I have no choice but to send you all to-”

“WHIRL!”, Tailgate screamed and pointed at the window.

Ultra Magnus gave a confused look to the white and blue minibot and turned slowly to the long window. Broken glass shattered flew into the room and breaking into smaller shards with impact. Before he could even register what was careening towards him, Ultra Magnus was slammed directly by the bundle of metal and landed face first across the hard floor.

The scouting group were frozen by the sight of Whirl battered from top to bottom, selective splatters of dark pink energon slightly dried on his plating. Whether or not that came from Whirl was the least of everyone’s worries. The rest of the people in the room were scrambling around the room, typing on their monitors and responding to alarms blaring in the room. A mech with a similar color scheme to Rodimus walked up to the broken mirror and squinted his eyes. Blaster turned from the “window” and back to the scouting group, “Um…Call me crazy but I think there’s a combiner down there. Did he throw Whirl?”

Cyclonus walked up next to Blaster and looked out into the planes. His old sight spotted a blurred but familiar framed bot standing on one of the more taller shards of rocks. He folded his arms and looked back at a damaged Whirl who was surrounded by most of the people in the room.

“If that thing has the power to throw something all the way up here, we’re in serious danger.”, Cyclonus remaked.

Everyone stood there as they looked at Cyclonus and back at each other. The assistants decided to move Whirl off of Ultra Magnus and called for the med bay. Rung knelt down to Whirl laying on the floor and touched his helm, the singular yellow optic flickering dimly. “Whirl?...Are you there?”

Whirl made a stiffened grunt and tried to move his body, resulting in his whole frame violently shaking. “N-n-nope!...Nu-uh! I ain’t movin’...for a *pant*...a while...”, he struggled to respond. He gave up quickly and laid there sprawled out on the floor.

Swerve walked up to Whirl cautiously, “So uh...How was the mission?”

Whirl moved his faded optic to look at his favorite bartender directly, “Look. You all know I’m not the most serious person in this entire ship and talking is taking up a lot of my energy now…. but you all need to know that we might all die…”

Ultra Magnus raised himself up with the help of the deck assistants, he rubbed his head with a grave look on his face towards the injured jet laying on the floor.

“Yea I dunno if you can tell by the state of my body now but let me say this...Our two captains are kind of in a moody mood. I can’t describe it but *cough* he’s really aggressive. Hotlock is smashing anything that comes within eye distance of him and…”, Whirl stopped to catch his breath.

Cyclonus looked out the shattered window again, “And he’s coming this way right now...he’s running this way on top of the rock shards.”

The room was filled with panicked chatter, the air suddenly feeling heavy to Tailgate as he looked frantically around. “A-Are we gonna die?...”, he whimpered out loud.

Whirl raised his claw into the air, “Probably! Say yer prayers now folks! A reverse mutiny is running straight for us!”, and dropped his claw back onto the ground with a clank. His optic faded completely as he sunk into recharge mode.

Ultra Magnus clenched his fist with an enraged expression, “ **WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!** ”, he yelled.

Chromedome and Rewind exchanged glances. Rewind sighed in a regretful way and walked up to the giant blue cop.

“Ultra Magnus,” the towering mech looked down at the archivist, “We were in a situation whether or not to go into the prison for supplies or not and we needed fire power because there was definitely a large group of life in that prison so-”

“Short version!”, Ultra Magnus snapped.

Rewind twitched his shoulders and raised his palms up, “Drift suggested that he and Rodimus fuse into Hotlock and Rodimus agreed even though Rung warned the two of them that Hotlock wasn’t a good idea. The 1st captain dismissed Rung and proceeded to fuse to form Hotlock and-”

The cop gritted his teeth, his mouth twitching. Rewind noticed and sped up his voice box, “Rodimus and Drift fused into Hotlock and Whirl followed them! Something went back and here we are! The end!”

Ultra Magnus placed a hand across his face, “So let me get this straight, you all let the captains FUSE into an UNSTABLE mech! FUSION IS AGAINST THE RULES WHILE YOU’RE ON THIS SHIP. W-what...how...HOW LONG WHERE THEY FUSED FOR?!”

“Um...About 4 hours?”, Tailgate weakly answered as he stepped up to the towering mech. The 2nd captain looked at the tiny mech below him with widened optics.

“4 HOURS? Would someone please inform me why I wasn’t notified by this?!”

Chromedome raised an index finger, “Because the both of them knew you wouldn’t approve of them fusing. The two of them decided to take a risk and judging by our current situation, they both lost control and are now probably on a ‘killing high’.”

“And why didn’t you notify the both of them of this?”

“Let’s be honest, those two wouldn’t have listened to me even if I held a gun up to their heads.”, Chromedome remarked. Ultra Magnus growled, trying to keep his composure.

Swerve looked at the assistants scrambling around and the rest of the scouting group standing around. “Hey uh, Ultra Mags….I know you’re really not in the mood right now, but shouldn’t we be sounding an alarm to notify everyone to maybe lock themselves in their rooms or something?”, Swerve scratched the back of his head nervously, “Look I don’t wanna personally meet our newly fused captain if he decides to climb up the ship’s side!!”

Blaster ran to the intercom and turned back to the 2nd captain, “Ultra Magnus sir, should I give an alert?”

Before Ultra Magnus could answer, he heard a loud thrashing sound coming from the window. He walked up to the window, the sound getting more clear as he got closer. It was definitely clear that a large mech was attacking the lower deck’s entrance. The cop turned and pointed to Blaster, “Make an announcement to everyone to report to their suites and stay there until this is sorted out.” He pointed to the deck assistants, “Two of you need to stay here in case we get word an Autobot group or somebody willing to help us! The rest of you help escort Whirl to the med bay immediately.”

Blaster clicked on the intercom and made the announcement while the assistants did as they were told.

“As for the rest of the scouting crew, you all have the honor of helping me deal with our captains.”, Ultra Magnus ordered.

Tailgate felt like his spark dropped deeper into his body. He saw Chromedome and Rewind preparing their guns, Swerve pulled out a small electric pistol with a frown, and Cyclonus reached behind him and pulled out his sword. He spotted Rung backed up against the wall with an anxious face.

“W-Wait a minute! Me and Rung don’t have a weapon! I-I’ll get smashed by him! This isn’t fair!”, Tailgate shouted.

“The little guy has a point”, Chromedome placed a servo on his hips, “Why the hell do WE have to fight Hotlock?! It ain’t our fault that our captains didn’t consider the risks more seriously!”

Ultra Magnus gave a typical stern look to everyone, “You all should’ve contacted me about your captains making a decision without their 2nd captain being aware!!!”

Rewind raised a brow, “It still isn’t fair!”

“I have to agree Ultra Magnus”, Rung also responded, “This is an unfair use of authority you’re expressing. This isn’t the best solution!”

Ultra Magnus walked towards the exit, “ Since you all can’t admit that you should’ve alerted me about this, I’ll give you a choice. Either help me with this or you all can stay in the cells in the basement for a month.”

Cyclonus was the first to start walking, then Rewind and Chromedome, and then the rest of the remaining scouting crew followed.

“We’re going into the lower docking bay, and hurry it up!” Ultra Magnus began sprinting down the halls as the others followed.

 

===

 

The journey to the lower deck was a rush. The emergency alarms echoed into the halls, the metal footsteps of people quickly making their way to their rooms, pushing through crowds and security guards tagging along with the second captain. Tailgate tried his best to keep up with the rest of the scouting group and Ultra Magnus. The trip from the captain’s dock all the way down to the first floor felt like such a race.

While slowing down to reserve his energy, Tailgate looked up to see Cyclonus next to him, keeping the same pace and, bearing his typical serious expression. The minibot looked back forward, feeling his spark grow cold as creeping fear started to develop. “Primus…”, he cussed to himself. The captains couldn’t have wreaked Whirl up that badly on purpose…

As everyone reached the docking floor, the walls and floors rattled and shook. At the end of the room stood an extremely tall door, standing in the way of a large guest leaving stalactite dents in the door. Ultra Magnus and the few security guards stepped slowly up to the steel object barely resembling a door anymore.

“That door is about to go down!” Ultra Magnus readied his gun as the others mimicked, “Everyone! Prepare to aim!”

The door beatings stopped in an instant. The piercing sounds dissolving away, leaving silence. Suddenly, two clawed hands, stained with some type of dried substance,  jabbed into each side of what was left of the pulverised door. The claws clenched into the steel like soft foam, and with a hard pull the piece of steel ripped away. Soft morning light bled into the room along with reflections of soft purple geometric shadows bouncing off the rock shards.

Everyone looked up to see the giant mech standing there with the remains of the door being held above him. Various deep scratched adorned Hotlock’s legs and arms, bullet wounds were sprayed across the chest, and the typical shine off the mech was dulled by ash and dust. To complete the look, splatters of pink fluids stained across Hotlock’s body along with other deeper tones of reds, blues, and a small patch of purple fully covering his right foot. His pitchfork weapon was mounted on his back, also stained with pink fluids turning gray and crusted.

Light gray smoke emitted from the exhaust pipes of Hotlock’s arms and evaporated away. The large mech glared down at everyone with 4 bright red optics shining greatly. He noticed some of them with disgustingly weak guns aimed directly at him.

Hotlock gave a smirk, revealing his pointed teeth. “Oh my….What’s this? You’re all turning on your _CAPTAIN_?”, he aggressively threw the beaten door into the sand outside. With a few heavy steps, the fused mech walked closer to the group, all of them stepping back in response. Ultra Magnus charged his gun and pointed it directly at Hotlock’s helm.

“Move another inch _and we’ll shoot_!”, the second captain warned. The security crew also took aim, awaiting orders.

All four of Hotlock’s eyes opened a little wider in response. He gave a snarling expression and huffed air.

Tailgate gazed at the towering fusion with wide optics, standing all the way in the back of the room with Cyclonus. He watched a drop of fluid fall from Hotlock’s forked weapon and splatter on the floor. It took a couple of seconds for the minibot to conclude that it was energon that used to flow through a mech once. And the other non-dark pink fluids on the fusion had to be from other unfortunate species. Tailgate started to shiver all over and looked at Cyclonus in panic, “I-....I-Is that energon on Hotlock?”

“Yes. It is...There must have been cybertronians in that prison after all. Along with other species judging by the other types of blood splattered on him.”, Cyclonus never broke his glare towards the giant fusion. He placed a steady servo on the little minibot’s head. “Listen to me, I want you to goto the escape pods when this gets extremely dangerous. You cannot fight. Understand?”

The blue and white minibot looked down, still feeling Cyclonus’s servo on his head. “I...I understand…”, his optics looking back at the fusion. He spotted Ultra Magnus stepping forward with his gun ready.

“Rodimus! Drift! Both of you! Unfuse NOW! You have violated and broken 2 major codes in the Autobot ship manual!”, the second captain gritted his teeth.

In a flash, Hotlock nabbed his pitchfork from his back and stabbed the floor right in front of the cop, “I’M NOT UNFUSING AND I’M SICK OF YOU BOSSING ME AROUND!” Ultra Magnus jumped back and took fire along with the rest who had a gun. The shots jabbed all over Hotlock’s frame as he raised his weapon back up from the floor and raised the forked weapon up. His optics squinted from the gun shots spraying all over his view.

Hotlock growled and swung his pitchfork across the floor, into the crowd, with a loud screech contacting the metal floor. “EVERY FRAGGING TIME I WANNA HAVE FUN, YOU GET IN THE WAY!”, Hotlock yelled. The group scattered, a few security guards were hit across the floor. The rest of the security guards resumed shooting at the fusion. Hotlock hissed as he covered his face from the shots. He reached down and statched up Ultra Magnus with both servos.

“Let me go! Now!”, the blue cop ordered. The fusion gave a nasty grin. He chucked the second captain out the docking area and into the pink sands outside. Dust clouds flew up around Ultra Magnus body as he laid there half covered in sand.

Chromedome took Rewind’s shoulder and pulled him closer, “Rewind, get out of here! It’s dangerous!”

The dark gray minibot turned to Chromedome, “Funny! I was about to say the same thing! I dunno what Ultra Magnus was thinking when he wanted us to go with him!….” The two of them steadied themselves when the fusion took another stab at the floor. Rewind looked over at Swerve hiding behind a large internal heating generator with just a pistol in his hand. The archivist sprinted to Swerve, with Chromedome tailing behind.

Swerve looked up, “So uh….Guess Whirl wasn’t exaggerating about the captains! Wish I had a bigger gun...”

“No kidding”, Rewind answered as he noticed Rung kneeling behind Swerve, “Me and Chromedome are gonna make a run for it, maybe hide in our suites. You and Rung wanna come with?”

“If we’re going to hide, we need to get all the way to the other side of the ship”, Rung responded. He raised himself up, “Based on what Hotlock’s behavior, he’s gotten to the point where nobody can talk to him. I have no idea how he’s still together. Rodimus must be trying to keep him and Drift together.”

“Mind me asking why would Rodimus want to stay fused together?”, Swerve asked.

“I’m not sure. Rodimus might have not wanted to unfuse when Drift wanted to, so he’s using all of his concentration to keep the both of them together. This could be what’s causing Hotlock to go crazy”, Rung touched his chin and looked at Hotlock still trying to stab the security guards, “We need to hit him hard on top of his head.”

“What?!”, Rewind confusingly said.

Chromedome raised an index finger, “He’s right. I read that a fusion’s vulnerable spot is their head, especially an unstable fusion. Hitting a fusion on the head with enough force can scramble their thoughts and auto unfuse them. Its because a fusion’s brain node is now increased in size a bit and is more sensitive than usual.”

“So it’s a weak spot?”, Tailgate asked loudly as he and Cyclonus rushed over.

The bartender grinned, “Huh. So you too are still here! Thought you two would’ve made a run for it.”

Tailgate twiddled his fingers, “Well we thought that maybe you guys would know a good hiding spot on the ship….”

“YOU…”

The group turned to see Hotlock stepped towards them, walking away from unmoving, injured security guards on the floor. The fusion’s shadow engulfed all of them as red optics stared holes into each of them. Swerve gestured his palms up, “H-Hey! Captains! We don’t want any trouble!”

Hotlock snarled and pointed a clawed finger, “You told Ultra Magnus! ALL OF YOU!”

“W-We didn’t say anything!! Honest!”, Rewind pleaded.

“You’re the one who decided to chuck Whirl through the window of the damn captain’s dock!”, Chromedome remarked.

Rung closed his optics and sighed nervously. _“Its a worth a try…”_

He reopened them and raised his hands up, “Hotlock! Please stop this!” The enraged mech gave the psychiatrist a look that felt like daggers. Rung paused and kept trying, “You are hurting your own crew! You’ve done your job and you’ve done it very well! How about we all just calm down and -!!!”

The orange mech immediately stopped talking, and felt a minibot tackle him onto the floor as a claw slashed above the two of them. The rest jumped back from the attack. Tailgate gasped, “Rung! Swerve!” The blue and white minibot felt Cyclonus pick him up from the floor and held him close. He turned his head up to the old jet, “W-Wait! We can’t leave them!” Cyclonus grunted, he didn’t move and just kept watching Hotlock.

“I’M NOT SPLITTING UP FOR ANYONE!”, the fusion yelled as he gripped his pitchfork with both his stained servos and gazed down at the group, “And I’m gonna split and dissect all of you traitors for being little fraggin’ tattletails!”

Tailgate shrieked as he saw Hotlock raise his weapon and took aim near him, Cyclonus, Chromedome and Rewind. As the fusion jerked the pitchfork back to get ready, a miniature missile like beam hit the back of his neck.

Hotlock had a surprised expression that quickly turned into rage as he turned around to see Ultra Magnus standing. He stood where the door used to stand with more artillery out. The wild mech turned around completely, “What? You wanna fight?!”

“As a matter of fact, YES!  You overgrown idiot!” Ultra Magnus barked. The insult worked as Hotlock walked toward the cop. Ultra Magnus walked backward outside onto the sandy terrain. The Accord cop took aim with a bigger gun than he had before and took a shot at the fusion’s face. Hotlock blocked the shot in time and swung his pitchfork at the mech.

Unfortunately Ultra Magnus didn’t dodge in time and got hit across his chest with the tips of the weapon. He wobbled backwards and maintained his stance. Another shot flew past the fusion’s head as it leaned down to try and pick up the blue cop. Ultra Magnus saw his opportunity and lept on Hotlock’s right arm with both guns in his hands pointed for his face. The shot hit directly into Hotlock’s upper right eye. The fusion wailed in pain and swung his right arm violently, Ultra Magnus falling below and into the sand again.

Hotlock cupped his right eye with a claw and immediately took grasp of Ultra Magnus’s upper frame. He slammed the cop down and grabbed his pitchfork with his other hand. When Hotlock’s hand removed his servo from his injured optic, his face plate chipped from the gun shot. Smaller red lights could be seen from inside the cracked faceplate.

“YOU DISGUSTING SLUG!”, Hotlock barked, “You think that cheap little shot can bring me down?!”

The fusion stabbed his pitchfork into the ground, catching Ultra Magnus between the blades. The cop yelled in pain as the blades broke through part of his plating, electricity sparked from his open wounds. Pinkish purple fluids slowly started to spill onto the sand.

Hotlock gave a confident smile and stood up straight, “Well you look comfty! I would love to finish you off but I’m really kinda exhausted for some damn reason…” He huffed and turned to walk back to the ship, “I’m bored with this, I’m gonna see if anyone else wants to play with me.”

Ultra Magnus struggled between the blades, hissing at the blades rubbing against his inner wounds. He gave up and laid there in the sand, “The blades….I’m too jammed in….I can’t move......” The cop laid there or a few seconds until he heard an intercom like sound. Ultra Magnus lifted propped himself up on his elbows and spotted the scouting group near the entrance of the ship.

The little white and blue minibot was near the intercom systems and started speaking.

“Come on Ultra Magnus! You’re the second captain! You can beat Hotlock!”

The cop grunted and squeezed his optics shut. “I...I can’t…”, he dryly replied. He knew nobody could hear him.

The little mini bot continued, “I know he’s tough but you’re Ultra Magnus! The Ultra Magnus! You’ve been around for so long! Fighting in all sorts of battles and stuff! Plus...It’s just Rodimus and Drift! They’ll listen to you!”

Ultra Magnus let the little blue and white minibot’s words linger. He heard the fusion mumble something very distasteful under his breath as he still proceeded to walk toward the ship. The cop actually believed the minibot’s words. Ultra Magnus has been through tough situations for a long time. He heard the intercom turn on again, this time it was that psychiatrist.

“Ultra Magnus. We need to injure Hotlock’s head. It’s the only way to get them to unfuse at this point.”

Ultra Magnus looked around at his surroundings. Large spiked rocks jetted from the ground into the sky. A few intersected into each other to form sharp stalactites pointing below. The cop decided it was the only way to put down the fusion while he was outside the ship. The pitchfork began to slouch from the soft sand, Ultra Magnus tried not to accidentally slice himself from the blades by moving backwards.

The blue mech finally released himself from the forked prison, and raised his voice.

“HEY!”

The fusion stopped and looked back to see the cop slouched over but alive, though his sides were bleeding a delicious color of pink energon onto the ground. This cop won’t die will he?

Hotlock bore his teeth and turned to the second captain. “You want some more you piece of dirt?”

Ultra Magnus shakingly straightened his posture and answered, “COME AT ME YOU DUMB EXCUSE FOR AN AUTOBOT.”

All four optics widened with a red shine aimed directly at the cop. The fusion growled and began sprinting towards Ultra Magnus, the tall blue mech responding with running off to the high hanging stalactite rocks. The wounds hindered Ultra Magnus’s pace greatly but he was reaching towards the right place. He reloaded his gun and prepared himself as Hotlock shouted from behind, “GET BACK HERE!”

As the two ran under the shades of dark purple rocks, Ultra Magus turned quickly and took the shot. Hotlock stopped immediately as the shot whisked past his head.

The fusion snickered and swung his claw at Ultra Magnus, digging into the mech’s plating. As the cop clutched his new wounds, the gunshot finally reached the rocky ceiling and crumbled the sharp hanging rocks. As a particularly large stalactite fell towards the two of them, Hotlock leaned in with a cocky grin.

“You think that little gun could stop-!”

The stalactite directly stabbed into the top of Hotlock’s cranium, the mech staying completely still. The fusion could only make a groan as his entire frame began to shake rapidly.

“Ngh-Ng-N-No….w-way……”, Hotlock began to fall forward as Ultra Magnus desperately tried to scoot away. The fusion lit up and glowed in bright white as Hotlock unfused and broke into two familiar body shapes. The first and third captain’s bright glow faded and landed face first before the cop with busted up frames.

Ultra Magnus fell back onto the sand, making a long groan. This mess is over with….

Rodimus lifted his head, sand flowing out of the small crevices of his helm. He squeezed his optics shut, feeling the sting of his injured right eye. “Oh god…What happened?...”, he slowly lifted himself up to a proper sitting position, “I have a major headache….” Drift shakingly lifted himself up on his servos and knees, he glanced over to the first captain. “Ooooh! YOU have a headache?! You’re the one who didn’t want to unfuse!”, the swordsman leaned up. He pointed his finger directly at his annoyed looking fusion partner.

“I told you to unfuse when we busted through the prison!!!”

Rodimus lowered his brow and looked away, “There were Decepticons! They weren’t going to cooperate! They aimed their weapons at us!”

Drift squinted his optics, turning slightly red, “Are you serious?! Some of them were pleading for mercy!”

“They could’ve been lying…”

“We lost control!”

Rodimus sneered, “We completed the mission! The prison is cleared!”

Drift was about to argue more until a shadow engulfed him and Rodimus. The two of them looked up to see their hunched over 2nd captain beaten up with dents and cuts through his frame and dripping energon out of his sides. Ultra Magnus looked down and silently glared. The red and yellow mech smacked a grin across his face while the swordsman began slowly scooting back.

“Aha! Ah….H-Hello Ultra Magnus!”, Rodimus nervously said with his hands up, “Those wounds wouldn’t happen to come from a stray enemy here would it-” A blue servo grabbed Rodimus’s head while another servo took hold of Drift’s head. Ultra Magnus began walking towards the ship with the other captains squirming and pulling away.

“Ow! Ow! Ultra Magnus! I can walk!!”, Rodimus cried.

The cop dragged the two mechs across the pink sand, creating a dust trail behind them. As he got closer, he spotted the scouting group crowded near the entrance. Ultra Magnus walked up to them, prompting the group to step back to make room to walk through. He glanced at everyone  and proceeded to walk into the ship, still holding the squirming mechs.

Rodimus held onto Ultra Magnus’s arm and pulled, “S-Stop! I can walk! Let go!!!” Drift kept silent.

The group all exchanged glances and followed.

 

============

 

“Okay, last one!”

Tailgate slid the last offline data pad into the filing cabinet. He gripped both sides of the latter and carefully stepped down the latter. The minibot eventually reached down into the floor and looked back up at the tall filing cabinets. The archive room on the 2nd floor of the ship held from everything from cybernetic books you’d find in a typical data vault, to millions of years worth of war documentaries.

The minibot walked across the peach colored oval room over to the more private section of the archive. Tailgate paced between shelves and chairs, looking around the quiet room. “I’ve never really been to the archive before…”

“You should go more often”, Rung answered from a crowded desk in the far back, “You’ve stopped attending Ultra Magnus’s personal lectures on Autobot history.” Tailgate walked up to the desk, placing both of his servos and chin lazily on the surface.

“But I don’t wanna learn anymore! Ultra Magnus makes it so boring!”, the mini bot whined.

“True,” Rung kept looking over a golden data pad while furiously writing numbers on another red pad, “But I could assign you certain books to read. I know a few memoirs that’ll are entertaining and will...let you have a better perspective on Cybertronian wars from personal viewpoints.”

“There’s been more than one war?”, Tailgate widened his optics, “Ultra Magnus didn’t even get to that part with me!”

“Of course! We’ve had several small warfares go on off and on our planet.” The orange mech never looked up from his writing. Tailgate glanced down, “So uh...What did Ultra Magnus sentence you to do?”

Rung paused to pull the golden pad closer, “I’ve been ‘assigned’ to do bookwork for the ship’s expenses and manually copy private files to another data pad.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad...I mean it’s only for a few weeks...”, Tailgate leaned up, “Oh yeah! I wanted to say that my shift is over!”

“You have to confirm that with Ultra Magnus, not me.”, Rung said with a smile.

“Oh you’re right! Oops.”, Tailgate scratched the side of his head bashfully. He turned away to sit near a chair.

“I feel like we got the easier jobs,” The minibot raised his servo up, and raised a finger,  “Chromedome got assigned to be an assistant in the med bay. Rewind got assigned to the other side of the ship to watch over comm links. As soon as Whirl gets better, he’s getting assigned to a jail cell for a week. Cyclonus is doing guard duty around the ship. And lastly, Rodimus and Drift are going to admit to the whooole ship that they messed up and will do Ultra Magnus’s paperwork for a month.”

Tailgate paused and looked at 6 out of 10 of his fingers, “I’m surprised Swerve got stuck with janitor duty...I mean...Considering what I was assigned to do as soon as I woke up.”, he placed a servo on his right arm plate with “Bomb Disposal” etched across.

“Form doesn’t dictate function.”, Rung responded in a more proper tone.

“Who said that?”

“Megatron.”

Tailgate lept up in his seat with shock, “W-What?! But it sounds so...inspiring... I thought Megatron was a huge, monstrous, scary mech that terrorized everyone!”

The psychiatrist looked to the side, “Well...Yes, he isn’t a very nice person. But he used to be a lot more ‘relatable’ before the Great War.”

The minibot’s eyes were gleaming with awe, he rocked back and forth, “Tell me more about pre-war Megatron!” Rung stopped writing and rolled his optics with a sigh, “I didn’t personally know Megatron. But I do possess a book he wrote, if you’re still interested in my book recommendations.”

Tailgate nodded his head excitedly, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Rung set aside the red data pad and picked up another red data pad, resuming his writing, “Come by my office later, I’m still on the clock.”

“Ok!”, the minibot said cheerfully as he slid off the chair and sprinted out of the archive.

After a moment, Rung stopped writing and lifted his thumb. A tiny piece of plate moved to reveal a microphone. He located the comm line to his recorder back at his office and began speaking.

“This is Rung. This recording isn’t a session, it’s a log for the fusion records,” he leaned back in his chair, “Optimus Prime kept a special record for all fusions conducted within Autobot Directories. Since there might be more actions of fusion on the Lost Light, I will try to keep track and document all reports of fusions and their behaviors.”

The psychiatrist paused and took off his specs, placing them on the table, “Hotlock, second log in. Less than a stellar-cycle on the Lost Light since take off. The ship was broken in by stray thieves, probably Decepticon aligned based off their color palette underneath their chipped paint job. The end result landed the ship to be strayed on an isolated planet, later to be confirmed an extremely old Cybertronian prison planet probably build around the early days of The Golden Age of Cybertron. As the situation unfolded, 1st Captain Rodimus Prime and 3rd Captain Drift decided to investigate the prison for supplies without 2nd in command Ultra Magnus.”

Rung paused again, staring up at the ceiling. He squinted his optics and pinched the upper ridge of his nose with a free hand. “As soon as Hotlock was fused into, he had trouble recognizing and remembering people around him that both Rodimus and Drift should’ve. He displayed more impolite, dangerous sociopathic tendencies when left alone as approximately 3 hours passed and nearly killed a few people when he broke into the ship. That method of hurting the top part of their head worked and the two captains immediately split up.”

“I can only theorize that Hotlock went out of control because Drift did not fully trust Rodimus with his thoughts. Makes sense, since he’s an ex-Decepticon that recently turned Autobot. This caused Hotlock to take more from Rodimus Prime’s egotism and rambunctious attitude. The two captains needs to get to know each other better and Drift needs be more honest with Rodimus. I doubt Hotlock will be allowed to re-form again since Ultra Magnus enforced a ‘no fusion’ rule while on the ship or on the same planet as the crew members. But knowing the type of colorful characters on this ship, this rule will be broken soon enough.”

  
“End of log.”, Rung turned off the recording and resealed the mic.

**Author's Note:**

> For more Transformers!SU stuff, visit my tumblr! There's a bunch....
> 
> http://squiddybiddy.tumblr.com/tagged/Transformers!SU


End file.
